Scapula, and other flash fiction
by LifeiscrazybutIamsane
Summary: One-shots about a variety of situations, forced out during periods of writer's block.
1. Scapula

_She is a scapula._

The gun goes off and I'm on my knees at her side and all I can think is that she is a scapula.

_The scapula is the basis of upper limb movement. It binds everything together, and the way you set it will dictate the end result of your movement._

The police family I've found myself absorbed into is based around one person. We've got Korsak, her rescuer. Frost, her partner. Frankie, idolizing her. Myself, pulled out of my socially awkward shell and somehow ending up in the role of best friend. Girlfriend. Fiancée. There is only one common link in there, binding us all together, rallying us to a common cause.

_In most cases, it requires a large amount of direct force to shatter a scapula. Blunt trauma, falls, crush injuries. Powerful contractions from electrical shocks and seizures._

My throat is closing up. I attempt to survey the scene as Dr. Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but newly engaged Maura Isles won't stop fighting her way in. Reddish-brown stain mars the pavement beneath the body, Caucasian female, - Jane, Jane, Jane - thirty-three years of age, gunshot wound to the abdomen - please, please, _please_ - tracking superiorly and posteriorly through the intestines, diaphragm, left lung, - _breathe, breathe, breathe_ - subscapular fossa to the dorsal exit wound. Based on all the factors, she's got seven to twelve minutes. - _don't leave, don't leave, don't leave_ - Even less if she doesn't remain calm, even less considering the gastrointestinal perforation, breeding ground for faecal peritonitis.

_When I was with _Médecins Sans Frontières_, most scapular injuries were accompanied and dwarfed by severe chest trauma. We had to triage, concentrate on the Level I injuries, leave the Level III and IV issues to the side. _

She peers up at me, coughs, reddish-brown pouring from her lips. "Maur, Frankie?" she whispers, air bubbles forming in the liquid. My hands fumble at her, wrapping around her back, slipping through the blood. It's blood, it's pouring out of her, _fuck _reddish-brown stain, it's _blood_. Those long fingers come up, tug my left hand from her abdomen, reveal the extent of the injury. "Frankie?" she repeats, pushing me away weakly. "Help Frankie. Not me. Frankie."

_There's no need to waste precious time plating together bone if the patient is going to succumb to their pleural or cardiac injuries._

"I'm sorry." I hold her for what feels like hours. Lips pressed to her forehead, sandwiching her chest between my hands, a futile gesture at this point. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

"I lah youu." Choked out, pain evident.

A rational part of my head tells me what's felt like hours has in fact been three and a half minutes. "Scapula," I murmur, laying a kiss in dark curls. The closest trauma centre is five minutes minimum. "Holds together the shoulder girdle." EMTs are reaching gloved hands past me. They're too late. She was dead the second that bullet left the gun. "You hold me together." Three and a half plus five plus the two it will take to get her in the bus right now. Ten and a half minutes gone right there. "Life, well, mine at least," I grip her fingers tight, crouch beside the stretcher in the ambulance. "It wouldn't be the same without you." It will take more than a minute and a half to rush her through the ER. Pushing us past the upper twelve minute limit. She won't make it to the hospital. "It won't be the same without you."

_Returning to complete normal function following a displaced scapular fracture is a daunting task, especially if the bone is not realigned. Especially if the bone is shattered beyond repair._

"Because what's an arm with no scapula?"

_It is nothing._


	2. Maple

"That'll be you some day."

Maura has just hung up her jacket in the entranceway when she hears the sentence, the rough, deep voice weakening her knees, as she's come accustomed to. She's been antsy all day, as she had gotten caught working a case late with Crowe, and hasn't seen Jane since breakfast. Her wife would usually drop by over the course of the day, but, with the dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs from the takedown during last week's April-Fool's-Day-gone-wrong case, she's been desk jockeying. The mouthing and whining about which had led to her being assigned to attend a Career Day today.

Maura stalls in her tracks, one fuck-me heel on and one off, flipping through situational possibilities in her head.

"When you grow up, that'll be you."

Has TJ been dropped over? Given Tommy's current job hunting phase, and Lydia's schedule at her newest place of employment, there's a 56.4% chance this is the case. She's got the other shoe off and is prepared to round the corner and sweep her nephew away from Jane when the detective continues.

"You'll be tall and strong and perfect when we come to pick you up and take you home."

Maura's brow wrinkles as she attempts to reevaluate, the wording throwing her previous theory out the window. She leans her shoulder against the wall and holds in a huff of frustration. Usually she can place the situation within moments.

"You'll have a really huge-mongous job, y'know. Holding all those thingies we put on you. Maur's got some really classy ones in storage, but shh, don't tell her, the ones I like are the ones with memories attached."

Maura bends to stroke her fingers across the shell of Jane's tortoise as he wanders past (she refuses to call him 'Turtle' in principle) and grins at the use of her nickname.

"And then you'll wait a couple days in the corner and we'll put all kinds of stuff under you for you to keep safe. But not even you can look at it, _capisce_?"

Maura gives up, rounds the corner, and muffles a giggle. Jane is flat on her back on the area rug, chin tucked to her jugular notch and right arm in a sling across her chest. Cradled in the (judging by the pill bottle and empty water glass on the side table) pain-killer-high detective's right hand is an _Abies balsamea_ seedling, roots wrapped in burlap. In the other hand is a worn copy of _The Crooked Little Christmas Tree._

Jane continues on, oblivious to her wife's presence. "You're going to grow up and be the bestest Christmas tree ever. I promise."

Maura pads over, settles cross legged beside her wife, and Jane lifts her head to rub her cheek on the ME's knee. "Look Maur!" (When she thinks about it, Maura actually can't remember the last time Jane's called her 'Maura' when they weren't working) A childish grin blurs the sharp lines of Jane's face. "Nursery owner was handing them out at the job fair. I thought fair meant fun but it wasn't but I got this lil guy so I guess it was kind of fun…? I named him!"

Maura waits for her to continue, and with nothing more forthcoming, prompts "Named _it_ what, sweet girl?" She has to bite her lip to hold back the lesson on pine cone sexes she could've gone off on a tangent about; she doesn't want to miss a moment of the adorableness of a doped-up Jane.

The brunette smirks up at her as Maura runs her fingers through her curls, and the blonde wishes she could retract the question, having a sinking feeling she is going to have to hate the name (in principle, of course).

"I named _it_ 'Maple'."


	3. Stardust

Orion's Belt lances across her right cheek, a sprinkle of darkest umber on pale golden skin. From the shadow of her jawline down towards the tensed muscles of her left shoulder, Taurus rages, almost lost in the char of her summer tan. My fingers trace along her ribcage as she buries her face in my hoodie, following the path of Cygnus, taking flight off her side. The entirety of the Milky Way galaxy sprays across her right hip, the splatter of stars ranging a light hue of peach on a field of white. I find Ursa Major cutting from her left wrist onto her forearm as she takes hold of my hands in hers and brings them up between our bodies. I can't stop the grin from breaking out across my face, and she glances at me, Bootes sprawled across her forehead. "What's so funny?" I shake my head and draw my thumb across Polaris, just below her bottom lip. I cannot tell her that her freckles map out the cosmos. I cannot tell her that I can see her atoms, and she is made of stardust.


	4. Trolls

3:05 AM.

Maura woke up to a shout. Not a normal shout. A sleep-talking shout, that no person older than twelve should have been able to explain with ease.

A shout of "Trolls!"

She shook the brunette lying next to her awake, and asked, "What about trolls?"

The clarification was brief, and Jane fell asleep again directly following.

"Trolls exist! They steal your socks, but only the left ones. What's with that?"


	5. Micromort

Doesn't fit anywhere in the current project.

A micromort is a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death. An average day has a risk factor of 23 micromorts, a base-jumper hits 430 micromorts per jump, and a superhero? They push upwards of 50 000 micromorts per fight. Maura whispers facts like these to her in the dead of night in misguided attempts to soothe her when she can't sleep, as if knowing her girlfriend has about a one in twenty chance of dying in any given encounter is going to make Jane feel better about watching her go out and lay her life on the line.


End file.
